Unexpected Visitors
by Josatex
Summary: An Elemental painter whose friend has gone missing gets a visit from Skulduggery and Valkyrie. Oneshot, unlikely to be any sequel or follow-up. K for implied violence.


**A/N: Hey guys, I'm alive! On the negative side, no eragon, zelda, star wars, or anything-I've-written-on-before stories. Anything I post up from now on will most likely be random oneshots from all sorts of sources, and maybe the occasional short humor fic. But I give no promises; it's fully likely that after publishing this I'll go inactive again for a while.**

It had been a nerve-wracking few days, to put it lightly. Then again, being tortured for your best friend's whereabouts doesn't exactly do wonders for one's stress level.

The entire fiasco could have been blamed on black acrylic paint. If Myri hadn't been walking down to the artists' supply store that hot afternoon, maybe Phoenix would have had enough time to get away. But maybes didn't change what was. She hadn't even seen the man in the bushes outside her house as she fumbled with the key. Before she knew it, something had collided with the back of her head, hard. When she woke up, she had a splitting headache and was face-to-face with a masked man. She yelped and would have jumped if she hadn't been tied to one of her kitchen chairs.

"Hello, Myriad Jinx. Would you care to tell me where your lovely friend Phoenix is hiding these days?" Myri spat at him and he promptly slapped her. It got worse from there. The man liked knives an awful lot. Long, horizontal scars all over her arms were what she paid for her noncooperation. As he left, he untied a dizzy, bloody Myri from the chair, bowed handsomely, and let himself out the front door. Myri promptly threw up in the sink and tried her best to stop the bleeding. Her fingers were clumsy and felt like sausages, but in about an hour she had managed to wash and bandage the wounds. They went all over her forearms, and, after drinking a huge cup of coffee with 5 spoonfulls of sugar in it, she barely managed to phone her friend to warn her. She then passed out on her bed, sleeping for 14 hours.

So now, two days later, was it any wonder that she panicked when a skeleton knocked on her door?

Myri grabbed a knife from her kitchen and hid clumsily in the pantry, knocking over the sugar bowl. Her bandaged arms were slow and difficult to manage; she wouldn't be doing much painting for the next couple weeks, if not months.

"Door's locked, but there's someone inside not answering," Valkyrie said.

"Are they dead?" Skulduggery asked.

"Not as far as I can tell. They're just rude."

"Alright then. Would you like to break down the door or should I?"

"You can this time."

The door splintered loudly.

"Helloooo? Anyone in here?" A young girl's voice echoed throughout the small bungalow.

Myri heard two people talking, or more accurately, bickering. They didn't sound like they'd been sent to kill her, but better safe than sorry. She heard them get closer, coming into the small, cluttered kitchen. "Someone's in the pantry," said the girl. Myri held the knife loosely, preparing to unleash a fireball at her opponents.

The door opened and she promptly threw the fireball and tried to stab whoever was there. Unfortunately, Myri had never had much need to fight or use her elemental powers in a combat situation. The fireball went high, blasting over the heads of the intruders. She managed to stab one… but it didn't seem to slow them down much. Before she knew it she was caught in a strong headlock on the ground, futilely struggling to get free. Somewhere in the confusing melee she'd lost hold of the knife, and she was too panicked to unleash another fireball.

"You stabbed my favourite suit," came a disappointed-sounding voice. Myri's answer was a long string of unorthadox curses inherited from her Scottish parents.

"Will you stop struggling? We're not here to hurt you. We need you to tell us what happened to your friend, Phoenix," The man said. Now that she could see him a little better, it appeared that he was not a man at all, but a skeleton.

"… You're not here to kill me?"

"Why on earth would we do that?" The girl said, sounding irritated.

"Well let's see, you broke into my house and assaulted me. That's not exactly neighborly behavior," Myri babbled, a Scottish burr cutting into her voice.

"You tried to set us on fire and stab us after hiding in the pantry."

"… Ok, you've got me there." The young girl let her out of the headlock and then noticed the bandages on her arms.

"What happened to you?"

"Oh, these? Nothing, a… painting accident."

"Quit lying. Who beat you up?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Listen, some very unpleasant people have hold of your friend and are going to be very unpleasant to her. Unless you tell us some basic info, she could die. We're probably her only hope right now, so tell us who beat the crap out of you and why they did it."

Myri relented. "It was a man in a mask. About 6'4", thick-looking, a tattoo of a snake on his right hand. He cut up my arms to get me to tell him where Phoenix lives right now. I managed to call her after he finished… questioning me, but she said she had a plan. She told me not to get any more involved, that I should get out of town for a few weeks until it all blew away…"

"Why didn't you?"

"I have a gallery signing in 2 days; if I'm not there for it I won't get paid."

"Do you have any idea why these people would go after Phoenix?"

Myri shrugged. "She's a librarian and archivist. At a guess, I'd say she knows some obscure info that could be useful to them. Or it could be her adept power; she gets impressions or something from inanimate objects."

The skeleton and girl looked at each other. "We'd better get going," said the skeleton.

"Wait! You didn't even tell me your names!"

"We'll let you know if we hear anything about your friend, ok? Until then, see you later." Without further ado, the two of them stepped through Myri's splintered doorway, leaving her in the kitchen, still slightly confused.

**A/N: Sorry for the totally random oneshot, had to get it out on paper. Err, pixels. ANYWAY, it's incredibly unlikely that I'll update anything related to this again, so you'll have to use your imaginations for it ;)**


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